Thomas Mulcair

Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh just put a new face on the opposition to Quebec’s religious symbol ban: his own.

In an interview with CBC Radio Montreal’s Daybreak, host Mike Finnerty asked him about the new CAQ government’s promise vigorously enforce a religious symbol ban and fire civil servants (police, teachers, etc.) who wear religious symbols on the job. While most of the public focus has been on Muslim women who wear the hijab, Singh, a Sikh, who wears a turban and kirpan (Ceremonial dagger), would also be affected by this ban if he was a Quebec civil servant:

Singh responded to this the best way possible, Sure, he couldn’t very well have said that wearing a turban is fine for Prime Minister but not a schoolteacher, but it’s still good that he’s taking a solid stand. It’s also quite politically savvy of him to refer to the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms when asked about the Canadian one.

This is way better than the “I don’t like it personally, but you’ve got to respect the courts” message former NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair put out during the last federal election. Sure, the Bloc Québécois was attacking the NDP over their opposition to the Harper Government’s challenge to a court ruling that allowed women to wear a niqab at citizenship ceremonies, but they were doing it viscerally and Mulcair responded with an appeal to respect judicial rulings and an attempt at partial appeasement.

Not sure what he was thinking, really. The staunch bigots were going to return to the Bloc regardless, unless the NDP changed its stance, which wasn’t going to happen. Progressives, on the other hand, were looking for stronger anti-Harper messaging.

Justin Trudeau, our current Prime Minister who won a Majority Government with more than a handful of seats in Quebec, including some former Bloc strongholds that had flipped to the NDP in the 2011 Orange Wave, had this to say on the subject at the time:

“You can dislike the niqab. You can hold it up it is a symbol of oppression. You can try to convince your fellow citizens that it is a choice they ought not to make. This is a free country. Those are your rights. But those who would use the state’s power to restrict women’s religious freedom and freedom of expression indulge the very same repressive impulse that they profess to condemn. It is a cruel joke to claim you are liberating people from oppression by dictating in law what they can and cannot wear.”

That was bold. That was principled. That’s what someone not politically timid and completely controlled by advisers who favour the safe choice says.

Too bad he turned out to also be a total shill for Big Oil, which, incidentally, was the other part of the Bloc’s attack on the NDP in 2015 (Muclair was kinda wishy washy on pipelines). The Bloc actually released an ad with an oil pipleline dripping crude that turned into a niqab.

Eco-left and hard right in the same ad. Only in Quebec, I guess.

This is a strange place politically. We embrace leftist ideals and inclusiveness on many issues, but then go and elect a reactionary provincial government that promises a form of exclusion that even Trump hasn’t tried.

I think Singh gets this. That’s why he made a point of mentioning his support of LGBTQ and women’s rights and that Conservative leader Andrew Scheer wants to head in the other direction along with his opposition to the religious symbol ban.

Singh, and everyone else, knows that the Bloc is imploding, this time with no outside help. He wants to make it clear to Bloc supporters jumping ship that voting Conservative means supporting a bunch of things that they may not be ready to get behind. They can’t greenwash or pinkwash their bigotry this time.

What’s most interesting, though, is how Singh is attempting to redefine the ban on religious symbols as anti-secular. During the interview (not during the clip above), he said:

There’s no way to say that you’re not supporting one identity or other, because there are certain identities that don’t require a kippa. But there are other identities that have headgear. I think it’s a hard argument to make, that one is more neutral than the other, because there’s always a certain tradition that may not have headgear and one that may or may not have a certain way of dress. I think that the point should be that we we have a society that is secular through the values that we promote — that sets freedom and access to justice for all. That there’s no barriers based on who you are. Those are the ways that we ensure that it is a secular society.

He’s right. Secularism means no state religion, not the state banning individuals, including those working for the state, from wearing the garments of their religion on the job while at the same time keeping a symbol of one religion on display in the National Assembly.

Singh is also reminding Quebecers that Muslim women who wear hijabs aren’t the only ones targeted by this ban. Sikhs who wear turbans like him and Jews who wear kippahs are also in the crosshairs, if not in the spotlight.

Will this bold strategy work? Honestly, who knows. Quebec politics are always a gamble.

Sure, a recent poll showed that nearly two thirds of Quebecers are in favour of a religious symbol ban, but that poll doesn’t show how many of them consider it an important enough issue to base their vote on. Maybe the CAQ won in spite of their bigotry, not because of it.

One thing is clear, though: trying to play it safe by appeasing the hard right while running as a left alternative is a recipe for disaster, especially in Quebec. When Mulcair tried it, he effectively turned Trudeau into the principled, inclusive opposition to the Bloc and, in the eyes of the rest of Canada, Harper. At least Singh won’t make that mistake.

Whether this stance translates into a better Quebec performance for the NDP has yet to be seen. Regardless, Jagmeet Singh speaking out against the religious symbol ban and redefining what it means is what the federal NDP needs.

On Sunday, at the Green Party of Canada’s National Convention in Ottawa, party membership adopted a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolution into the official Green platform. Now leader Elizabeth May, currently the party’s only elected Member of Parliament, is taking a week off to decide if she still wants to head the federal greens.

Entitled Palestinian Self-Determination and the Movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, the resolution builds on existing Green Party opposition to the expansion of Israeli settlements and demolition of Palestinian homes with “the use of divestment, boycott and sanctions that are targeted to those sectors of Israel’s economy and society which profit from the ongoing occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).” The Greens will continue to support BDS “until such time as Israel implements a permanent ban on further settlement construction in the OPT, and enters into good faith negotiations with representatives of the Palestinian people for the purpose of establishing a viable, contiguous and truly sovereign Palestinian state.”

The resolution also “opposes all efforts to prohibit, punish or otherwise deter expressions of support for BDS.” Efforts like the recent toothless, though inflammatory resolution in the House of Commons condemning BDS proposed by the Conservatives but supported by Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Government.

May opposed the Green BDS resolution, but said she welcomed the discussion and would support the members’ decision. Now, she is singing a somewhat different tune, calling BDS “polarizing” and musing in public if stepping down as leader but remaining the MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands in BC might be the best course of action for her.

Most likely May is really weighing whether or not she can effectively defend her party’s position on the issue in a debate a few years from now with Trudeau and whomever the Conservatives and NDP decide to anoint as leader. You know someone’s going to bring it up. Probably Trudeau.

She’s also probably doing some math. Figuring out just how many lefties this will bring over from the NDP and comparing it to how many Green voters she may lose and factoring in how many Canadian voters actually care about this issue enough to switch their vote over it.

This is, regardless of how it plays out, a change in Canadian politics, and not just because the Green Party has staked ground in stark opposition to our current Government and Official Opposition. The very fact that May is mulling her options right now is incredibly significant.

In theory, if a party’s membership and leader are on different sides of a particular issue, the leader must decide between getting behind what the membership wants or resigning. That’s what’s happening here.

Now compare that with the NDP a little over a year ago. The leader, Thomas Mulcair, was at odds with party membership over his unbalanced support of Israel. In a contrast to what we are seeing now with the Green Party, NDP membership had to decide if they could get behind what the leader wants or leave the party. Many opted to try and push Mulcair’s position a little bit closer to theirs and some even occupied offices to do just that, only to see Mulcair back to his old tricks in the General Election.

With the Green Party, it’s the leader who has to follow what the party wants or leave. And that is a big change in Canadian politics.

I really thought the US would get there first and we’d see a fistfight on the floor of the House of Representatives before what happened Wednesday in Canada’s House of Commons. I was wrong.

In case you were on a social media sabbatical, I’ll recap: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau manhandled Conservative Whip Gordon Brown and accidentally elbowed NDP MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau in the chest, then got into a shouting match with NDP leader Thomas Mulcair.

Have a look (starts around 0:38):

What lead up to this was a vote being called on a reduced timeframe for debate on the Liberal Government’s controversial assisted dying bill. The NDP is not opposed to the bill itself, but nor do they support it as a party. Mulcair made it a free vote, so MPs could vote their conscience.

What they are opposed to is the way Trudeau’s Liberals have been limiting the debate time on this and other recent pieces of legislation. That’s why they were blocking Brown’s path, something the whip didn’t seem to have a problem with, which prompted our PM to leave his seat and take matters, and Brown, into his own hands.

I have some advice. Most of it is for the NDP, but we’ll get the easier advice out of the way first.

Dude, What Were You Thinking?

By all accounts, Justin Trudeau is a smart man and a skilled politician. That’s why his antics on Wednesday really make no sense.

The vote was going to happen. The opposition whip making his way to the Speaker was really just a formality.

If he wanted to break up the logjam, he had two viable options: officially ask the Serjeant-at-Arms to do it or unofficially get some MP craving the spotlight to do it. What he did wasn’t one of them.

Maybe he thought this would play like Jean Chretien choking a protester. Instead it came across more like the late Rob Ford knocking over a city councillor by accident.

Or maybe he wasn’t thinking at all. Maybe he was just pissed. If that is the case, then there is a real problem. When the opposition is pulling a stunt to highlight your government ramming things through, maybe pulling your own stunt of ramming yourself through them isn’t the best idea.

My advice to our Prime Minister is, well, to think.

Wrong Spin, NDP

As for the NDP, Trudeau had handed them the kind of PR gold opposition parties can only dream of. Their response should have been a simple one that stayed on message: Trudeau is trying to steamroll bills through Parliament and now look at him physically steamroll through the opposition.

Instead, they decided to sell it much in the same way a pro wrestling jobber would sell an elbow from an up-and-coming mid-card talent, by falling to the ground. They decided to take the “what kind of feminist is Trudeau, he just elbowed a woman and she had to leave the room” approach.

Now don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of ways to call bullshit on Trudeau’s much touted feminism. His recent arms sale to Saudi Arabia comes to mind. This, unfortunately, was not one of them, and I am astounded NDP leadership didn’t realize it.

In less than 24 hours, they managed to turn a story about our PM acting like a bully into one where they were the butt of jokes in The Beaverton and, at the same time, the posterboys of trivializing violence against women by reducing it to an accidental elbow caught on camera while others have suffered and continue to suffer much worse on a daily basis.

The NDP stunt was a statement against fast-tracking legislation in general, not against the specific bill being fast-tracked, but it’s easy to conflate the two when Mulcair and company aren’t sticking to their original point of contention by making it all about the elbow. Trudeau has apologized three times for the elbow, muting further attacks based on it and the Liberals have now quietly withdrawn their attempts to speed up debate in the Commons, meaning the NDP has now completely missed their chance to make it an issue, at least for the moment.

Another unfortunate side-effect is that now Brosseau is fielding tons of personal attacks online about the incident which she, in no way, deserves. Getting elbowed in the chest, I can only imagine, is quite an unpleasant experience, even if it was an accident. She was right to leave the room after being hit and also perfectly justified in being upset about what happened.

The over-reaction and insistence of her party that this is all about the elbow is not her fault. Unfortunately, now when Mulcair and others defending her against the recent hate tweet something like this:

Almost all the responses are about the elbowing incident and whether or not the party over-reacted and not about all of the hateful comments she has received.

So now the NDP has completely lost their message and are now fighting against internet trolls when they could have easily turned this into a statement about government bullying.

My advice to the NDP is the exact same advice I gave to Justin Trudeau: think.

The Winners

So who comes out of this debacle on top? Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and the Conservatives.

May got her chance to chastise both the Liberals and the NDP for being incredibly immature. Meanwhile, former PM Stephen Harper, who doesn’t always show up in the House of Commons these days, but was present for this vote, can be seen briefly in the video feed of the incident smugly smirking at what was going on:

Our 16th podcast is our holiday/2015 Year-in-Review Special. Regualr panelists Jerry Gabriel and Josh Davidson discuss some of the top events and stories of 2015 including the Canadian Election and the rise of Justin Trudeau, Just for Laughs, the Quebec anti-austerity movement and police repression, Bernie, Hillary and Trump, the Montreal music scene and more! Plus the Community Calendar, Sergakis Report and Predictions for 2016!

Panelists Quiet Mike, Josh Davidson and Jerry Gabriel discuss our new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the defeat of the NDP and the overall results of the Canadian Election and Bernie Sanders and the US Democratic Debate. Plus a Sergakis Update and Predictions.

The votes are in. No, not the votes that determine who will sit in the next Canadian Parliament and who will be our Prime Minister for the next few months or four years, those come later tonight.

I’m talking about the Forget the Box #ELXN42 readers’ poll. We opened the poll a few days before the official election announcement and it closed at midnight.

Since this was an extremely long campaign, it’s possible people who voted early may have changed their mind, but that was not a possibility. The flipside of this is that people couldn’t cheat by changing IP address. One vote per person, or per device and IP.

The Winner: NDP

137 poll respondents chose Thomas Mulcair’s NDP, which translates to 51% of the vote and a clear victory for Team Orange among FTB readers. I’m not in the mind of everyone who voted in this poll, but my vote went the same way as the majority of respondents, so I can speculate as to why the New Democrats won.

After close to 10 years in power, people are sick of Stephen Harper and want to replace him, but they don’t want to do that with a party that has voted with him on some of his more egregious bills.

The NDP has vowed to repeal C-51, the so-called anti-terror law which leaves what constitutes a terrorist open to interpretation by the government du jour but imposes strict punishments for even “promoting terrorism.” They will also do away with C-24, the companion bill that creates second-class Canadian citizens who can be deported if they are labelled terrorists under C-51.

Mulcair has also promised an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women within the first 100 days of an NDP mandate. He also says he won’t honour Harper’s signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

These issues may have been reasons why FTB readers chose the NDP. Presumably, they also weren’t fond of banning Muslim women from wearing a niqab, or at least not enough to vote with that issue in mind.

Also, voting strategically to defeat Harper makes considerably less sense on the Island of Montreal than it does in the rest of the country. Here the Conservatives realistically have a shot of winning just one riding, Mount-Royal.

Runner Up: The Liberals

Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party of Canada finished in second place in our poll, though remain in first in the recent major polls. On the FTB poll, they got 82 votes which translates to 30%. They aren’t that close to the leading NDP, but are much closer to them than they are to any of the parties on the bottom of the pack.

Since I didn’t vote Liberal, I really can’t be sure why a bunch of our readers did, but I can guess. It could be because of Trudeau’s personal popularity or people thinking that they had the best chance of defeating Harper. It could also be for their policies which differ from the NDP. Trudeau’s promise of outright pot legalization comes to mind.

The Rest

Surprisingly, the Conservatives got 11 votes on our poll, giving them the third spot, followed by the Greens with six votes in fourth and the Bloc Quebecois and Pirate Party of Canada tied for fifth with five votes apiece. The other parties and the “there’s an election” and “none of the above” options all got fewer than five votes each.

I would have guessed the Greens would have done better, at least better than the Conservatives. Maybe Green supporters voted for either the NDP or Liberals, though strategic voting on a poll that doesn’t actually count for anything except this endorsement article makes no sense.

Regardless, those are the results of the 2015 Forget the Box election poll. There’s still time to vote in the actual #ELXN42. If you haven’t already done so, you can find out how at electionscanada.ca

It has all come down to this. Tomorrow night we will know the result of #ELXN42, the longest Canadian Federal Election campaign in recent memory.

With millions of votes already cast in advance polls, no more nationally televised debates left, and no real time for new media stories (except for huge ones) to take hold, it’s all about the ground game now. All the parties know it and have been sending their armies of volunteers out to knock on doors and call voters all weekend and will quadruple their efforts tomorrow.

At this point, I think the election is still too close to call. Sure, each party will tell you that they are headed to victory and so will their pundits, but what will it actually take for each of them to win?

Well, here is my analysis, in the order the parties are currently polling nationally:

The Liberal Party of Canada (LPC)

They started at the bottom and now they’re here. On top of the polls. For this to become reality, recent polls need to be right as well as mainstream media predictions.

For Justin Trudeau to become our next Prime Minister, corporate pundits need to be correct and not just thinking wishfully. Or, they have to be powerful enough that their pieces cause their wishes to be fulfilled.

If enough Anyone But Conservative voters, particularly those in Ontario, think the niqab issue damaged NDP chances of retaining Quebec and lined up behind Trudeau, the Libs may pull it off. That is if the last minute scandal surrounding Dan Gagnier, their now former campaign co-chair/Enbridge lobbying tutor doesn’t take hold.

The Conservative Party of Canada (CPC)

Stephen Harper is a master electioneer, but his strategy may have finally caught up with him. Making it a super long campaign and then throwing a curveball covered in a niqab at his top ranked orange opponent late in the game was a brilliant, though morally bankrupt, strategy.

If the campaign had ended two weeks ago, it may just have worked. However, it’s possible things may have gone on just a bit too long for the Conservatives. Even Lynton Crosby, the so-called Australian Karl Rove, has jumped ship.

Crosby’s strategy is still at play, though. If Harper hopes to remain Prime Minister, Canadians not only need to be as xenophobic as he thinks, but their prejudice needs to be the first thing on their mind when they go to the polls.

Endorsements from corporate media at the behest of their owners could also help bring about a CPC victory as well as support from the wealthiest Canadians. Niche campaigning from the likes of the Ford brothers could help, too, but statements critical of Trudeau having smoked weed do more harm than good when they come from Doug Ford, an (alleged) former hash dealer and brother of admitted crack smoking mayor.

Plus they could always cheat.

New Democratic Party (NDP)

Remember when I said that the ground game is the key? Well, that applies to the NDP more than any other party. With poll numbers sinking, the local candidates and their campaigns have the best chance of reassuring voters that a vote for the NDP is the best way to defeat Harper.

It would take a superb ground game this time out for Thomas Mulcair to become Prime Minister, but it is possible. Recent polls being wrong would help, too. Keeping the Quebec seats they won during the Orange Wave and adding a few more is essential, so the Bloc really needs to implode more than they have been.

They would also need a strong First Nations turnout, which may happen. Mulcair spent much of the last two weeks campaigning in First Nations communities promising an almost immediate inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, nation to nation dialogue and more. It may pay off in ways other than bolstering his progressive credentials.

Mulcair has been impressive even since the party’s poll numbers started tanking. He kept his cool in the TVA French debate and in a recent interview on Vice. That could help. The Gagnier scandal growing legs would help, too.

Green Party (Green)

The Green Party’s ultimate goal this election should be to retain the seats they have and win as many new ones as they can. If they succeed, they could end up wielding some power in a minority parliament.

Most of those seats will probably come in the west of the country where the party has been focusing their efforts. If their ground game was solid, they very well may achieve that goal. If not, well, as long as Elizabeth May still has a voice in Parliament, the party will not be in bad shape.

Bloc Quebecois (BQ)

For the Bloc, a victory is the majority of seats in Quebec. That’s just not going to happen.

At this point, the Bloc winning any seats would be impressive. If leader Gilles Duceppe wins his back and overall they top their 2011 seat count of four, it will be a victory for them.

For this to happen, it would take, for lack of a better word, a miracle. Their desperate play to the right on the niqab issue only benefited the Conservatives and indirectly the Liberals.

Bottom line, the Bloc is screwed.

What I Think Will Happen

While this not what I hope will happen, it’s what seems the most logical outcome on Monday evening will be. I predict a Minority Government. Regardless of which party comes out on top, I’m pretty sure none of them will win enough seats to form a majority.

Coalitions are possible and so is a huge role for the Governor General in selecting our next Prime Minister. But I guess only time will tell.

Oh yeah, there’s also still a few hours to vote in FTB’s Election Poll. The winner gets an endorsement post written on behalf of FTB readers published on election day.

Panelists Léo K. McKenna, Josh Davidson and Jerry Gabriel discuss upcoming Canadian Federal Election and dumpster food served as gourmet meals at the UN and what that means for food waste in Canada. Plus an interview with Jake Smith from Montreal band Lakes of Canada, the Community Calendar and Predictions.

I guess you could chalk it up to a victory for traditional debate media. The French language leaders’ debate or #debatdeschefs was hosted by Radio Canada, making it the first debate of this campaign hosted by media that usually host debates.

It was, by far, the fieriest and most interesting debate we’ve had this campaign. This could be because it was the first to feature five major party leaders, Stephen Harper, Thomas Mulcair, Justin Trudeau, Elizabeth May and Gilles Duceppe. It could also be because the moderators knew how to ask the right questions. Regardless of the reason, it was a good one.

But how did the leaders do? Well…in no particular order, here’s what I thought (with a little help from the live tweets I made during the debate):

Gilles Duceppe

With the Bloc Quebecois tanking in the polls and Gilles Duceppe projected to lose badly in his own riding, this was the newly re-minted leader’s shot. He needed to pull off a knockout victory if he wanted to have a chance of taking back what the Bloc lost in 2011. He failed.

He did have some memorable moments, most notably when he turned the pipeline debate into an issue of separation of powers and was backed up by May. Before that moment, the energy section was just a re-hash of the previous two debates.

Duceppe also started strong with his opposition to women wearing the Niqab at citizenship ceremonies, something the Bloc has really been pushing in the past week. But then it turned into a debate between Mulcair and Harper. By that point Duceppe had faded into the background.

He also got left out of the fray when it came to rules for Quebec sovereignty. That turned into a debate between two federalists, Mulcair and Trudeau.

He was also responsible for one of the more confusing moments of the night when things turned to the Senate and the NDP’s plans to open the constitution in order to abolish it:

Did Duceppe just argue in favour of keeping the constitution the way it is? Wonder what Rene Levesque would think? #elxn42#debatdeschefs

Duceppe has one more shot, the TVA debate on October 2nd, to save his party from obscurity.

Stephen Harper

Our sitting PM Stephen Harper seemed like he would rather have been actually sitting during most of this debate. He started off alert when the Niqab discussion was happening, claiming that he would never force his daughter to cover her face. Mulcair argued that the Conservative leader’s approach to helping oppressed women was wrong-headed. I had this to say:

After that, Harper seemed to doze off. Maybe he was trying to play the father figure unimpressed with the kids arguing or maybe he really just didn’t care. Regardless, he seemed to perk up near the end when discussion shifted to one of his favourite subjects:

Thomas Mulcair

NDP leader Thomas Mulcair was king of the one-liner at this debate. From his comment on other parties incurring debt which ended with “for everything else, there’s MasterCard” to his line about Harper hiding his failed economic policy behind a niqab to this gem:

Leading the polls in Quebec, everyone thought Mulcair would be under fire from all sides in this debate and he was. He handled it by not really handling it. He didn’t go all Angry Tom, he stuck to his message instead. He offered the same delivery he did in English, that of someone carefully choosing his words.

He seemed rehearsed and holding back, but that worked in his favour this time. It said loud and clear that he isn’t really fazed by the nature of the debate. He was going to stick to script no matter what. Also, that he was the same debater in English and in French, countering some recent criticism.

No, he didn’t have a Layton moment, like the one that turned Quebec voter intentions into a wave that wiped out the Bloc in 2011, but one wasn’t needed and going after Duceppe would have been counter-productive. Better to treat him as an after-thought and focus on Harper instead.

The counter-argument is that by playing it mellow he wasn’t doing much to inspire Quebec voters, just reassure them that they had made the right choice. His best course of action would be to prepare things he is going to say, but go off script in the next two debates, once in English and once in French.

Justin Trudeau

By contrast, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau came across as natural. He looked good on camera and really tried to play to the crowd:

Trudeau name drops like a pro wrestler: theDearfoot when in Calgary and now Rona and Pharmaprix when in Quebec #elxn42#combatdeschefs

He looked like the perfect candidate to play the Prime Minister in a movie, and not just a CBC movie of the week, I’m talking about a major Hollywood production. The problem is he wasn’t working with a script that could really connect with voters. His best moment in the debate cast him in a supporting role, reminding Mulcair and Harper, who were arguing about niqabs and how best to protect women that the only woman in the room, May, had yet to speak on the subject. Kudos to him for calling out their man-splaining. It made him more likeable, for sure. Electable? Well…

Elizabeth May

It’s unfortunate that Green Party leader Elizabeth May’s French wasn’t better. If it had been, she probably would have interjected more and may have very well won the debate. She made some of the best observations of the evening. When everyone was talking Quebec independence, she was the only one to mention that natives had their own right to self-determination:

When the topic was the niqab she said loud and clear that it was a distraction, which then encouraged Trudeau and Mulcair to do the same.

Also, when Duceppe made the pipeline discussion about provincial jurisdiction, she agreed. She added, though, that the people of British Columbia were in solidarity with those in Quebec who did not want Ottawa imposing pipelines on their communities.

This debate helped breathe new life into a very long campaign that seemed to be dragging on for a while. Could the real winner of the debate possibly be the debate itself?

We just passed the mid-point in one of the longest Canadian Federal Election campaigns in a while. The stress of such a long campaign is starting to show, sometimes in quite hilarious ways.

Over the past few weeks, politicians and staffers alike have given us some moments that really make you do a double-take. Some are quite offensive, others are hilarious in how tone-deaf they are. All will make you wonder how supposedly seasoned political operatives could have let them slip by.

Enjoy:

Harper’s 24 Hour Surveillance

When it comes to making your opponents’ greatest fears about you come alive visually yourself, no one beats Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. Afraid the CPC will take away your rights? Here’s a campaign sign advertising 24 hour surveillance with the image of a surveillance camera to really drive the point home.

Now, to be fair, there were some people vandalising election signs in Harper’s home riding of Calgary Heritage and it is illegal to vandalise political signage during an election. So, adding stickers to let would-be vandals know that they are being filmed and could be prosecuted does make sense.

That is, of course, until you remember that the potential audience for those stickers is all Canadian politicos on the internet. To dissuade a few people in Calgary with spray cans, the party behind Bill C-51 effectively advertised to the country that re-electing Harper meant 24 hour surveillance.

Gilles Duceppe Taking the Fight to Isis

Isis beware! Gilles Duceppe has you in his sights. The Bloc leader announced that a sovereign Quebec would fight the Islamic State.

This came as part of an announcement that the Bloc supports the Harper Government’s military mission in Syria. While that stance is a pretty desperate last-minute move to the right in and of itself, bringing Quebec sovereignty into the equation makes it a point of ridicule.

I don’t have to read the internet comments on this one to know what the general theme will be: just how Quebec is supposed to take on ISIS without a military of its own? Send the SQ to Syria?

If voters’ primary concern is engaging in foreign wars, they’re going to go with the guy who has already gotten us into them and plans to keep us there. And that’s not Gilles Duceppe.

Trudeau’s On a Plane!

This is a case of screwing up an announcement that should be run-of-the-mill. Due to the length of the campaign, the major parties with smaller war chests (all but The Conservatives) were only able to charter private jets to fly their leaders, staff and press around the country at the midway point. Until then, Mulcair and Trudeau had been flying commercial.

When they finally got their private, branded planes, the NDP and the Liberals announced it. While Mulcair was smart and made it part of a broader policy announcement of new aerospace jobs, Trudeau went the full-on the Andy Sandberg “I’m on a Boat!” route.

If you can think of a better way to prove your opponents’ criticism that you are out-of-touch and elite than bragging about your new private jet, please let me know. Otherwise watch this video and try not to have that Lonely Island song in your head:

The Bloc Going for the Xenophobic Environmentalist Vote

The Bloc makes a second appearance in this short list. Not surprising considering their whole campaign has pretty much been one big WTF moment from the time Gilles Duceppe became leader again without even a vote.

Have a look at their latest ad:

No, you’re not imagining things. In just 21 seconds, they went from slamming the NDP for their refusal to come out against pipelines to slamming them for their opposition to Harper’s attempts to ban the Niqab at swearing-in ceremonies for new immigrants.

Wedge issues are an effective way to mobilize a specific voter base. They work fine solo or in tandem with other issues that appeal to the same voter base like how opposition to marriage equality and a woman’s right to choose fit well together. The Bloc didn’t bring in Bush-Era Karl Rove, they brought in Rove drunk and passed off that the last cheque bounced.

I can only imagine the brainstorming session that went into this:

“So our attempt to get the xenophobe vote didn’t work and our play to the left to get pipeline opponents on board isn’t working either. I know, let’s try and appeal to both groups at the same time!”

“Hey, oil is black, and so are Niquabs. I’ll call the graphics department.”

This, of course, was followed by tears and reminiscing on how they once were the official opposition and came so close to being part of a coalition government.

Harper’s Old Stock Canadians

Thursday’s Globe and Mail Leaders’ Debate was, to be completely honest, kinda boring. Sure, there were some snarky comments exchanged, probably more than in the last debate, but overall just a lot of arguing over numbers. And then our current Prime Minister said this:

“So,” the internet wondered, “just what do you mean by old stock Canadians, Mr Harper?” Well, in Europe, “old stock” generally refers to the original inhabitants of the land, or longtime inhabitants. Like old English stock or old French stock.

So does that mean he was referring to the First Nations, whom his government has routinely screwed over? Nope. He clarified the following day that he was referring to Canadians who were “the descendants of immigrants for one or more generations.” And while he didn’t specify Western European descent, we all know he was talking about white people.

The racism and ignorance inherent in referring to people living on occupied land as old stock proves that Harper is a right-wing reactionary and a bigot with one small off-the-cuff remark. While it does qualify as a WTF moment, it also may help him solidify his base. Remember, his base is this guy:

I would have liked to include some WTF moments from the NDP and the Green Party but the Greens have been doing everything right this time around and the only NDP screw-ups are of the direction and policy variety and make sense if you know Mulcair and the party. No double-takes possible. But the campaign’s still going, so they may make the cut next time.

Got any of your own #elxn42 WTF moments? Please share them in the comments.

This post originally appeared on QuietMike.org and is republished here with permission from the author

Politics in the Great White North has often been referred to by Americans as boring, dull and uninteresting. This widely held opinion also extends to Canada’s national elections; they are too short and too civil. Canadians even take pride in these facts. “At least we aren’t as crazy as those damn Yankees,” we would say.

Canadian politics, the elections in particular, are indeed mind-numbing and tedious. More so when you take into account we are midway through the longest election campaign in modern Canadian history. A month in and I’m ready for bed already. Speaking as seasoned follower and analyst of politics in general, I feel election forty-two is missing a great deal of fire so far.

What makes this campaign season so epically dismal isn’t the lack of money being spent on campaigns or the amount of attack ads on TV, it isn’t even the issues themselves (although they aren’t helping), it is the uninspiring party leaders who are at fault.

Not an Inspiring Bunch

There are four real parties running candidates throughout Canada this fall, three of whom, who as of now, have a shot at winning. The main three, the Conservatives, the Liberals and the New Democrats are in a virtual three way tie. Elizabeth May‘s Greens are still a distant fourth.

First off you have Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party. Harper had a terrible first month on the campaign trail. Harper had to endure the fallout from the Mike Duffy trial as well the struggling economy which is now in official recession. His handling of the death of a 3-year-old Syrian refugee didn’t help.

On the Campaign trail Harper has gone into hiding. He has employed his “chickenshit strategy” where candidates have reportedly been urged to skip debates and avoid the media. Harper himself has already promised to skip the English broadcasters’ debate. Even though the Conservatives are running their campaign as a party on the way out, they can still win.

Next we have Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party. The young Mr. Trudeau reminds me of an inexperienced Hillary Clinton. For the last decade, the Liberal party has gone after the centrist vote, driving down the middle of the road on social issues (except marijuana legalization) and on the right on economic issues.

Under Trudeau, it appears Liberal strategy has not changed and again, it’s not really working. Being the centrist party also means you take the brunt of attacks from conservatives and NDP, all three of whom are sucking up to voters who don’t really follow politics.

Last we have Tom Mulcair’s New Democratic Party (NDP). Tom is an ex Quebec Liberal and it shows. The NDP used to be known for its socialist leanings, but not anymore. Now it seems they are just another Liberal Party without the experience. A socialist party in favor of the TPP agreement? Really?

Playing it Safe and Boring

The three political parties at the top, while different, are all playing it safe catering to the same middle of the road voters and as a consequence boring the crap out of everyone. The problem is, the political ideology of Canadians does not lie at the center.

Last week, before the refugee story started to emerge, the media was fixated for days on which party leader wanted to balance the budget. Trudeau would run a short term deficit to turn the economy around while Mulcair and Harper would balance the budget at all costs. And you wonder why Canadian politics is boring?

Balancing the budget, while important, is not the most pressing economic issue of our time and it would be nice to stop pretending it is. Like the United States, and following a decade of Harpernomics, income inequality should be front and center, but no… Canada’s Middle Class is strong, but inequality is skyrocketing.

Canadians don’t care about the trial of a corrupt senator they can’t relate to, it’s certainly not going to change which way they vote. They don’t care about deficits if they can’t find work. Nor do they care which party leader is more ready to lead. They’re all ready or they wouldn’t be running. Uh, yawn.

Canada’s party leaders could learn a lesson from the man shaking up his party and scorching the campaign trail south of the border. Someone who is lighting a fire under the asses of the electorate and bringing important issues to the forefront of people’s minds.

Searching for Sanders

No, it isn’t Donald Trump or Ted Cruz. There is a big difference between bringing excitement and bringing in TV ratings. American Senator Bernie Sanders, the proud socialist from Vermont, has been packing them in by the thousands for months now. And he’s done so by campaigning on the economic issues that common people can relate to. He is bringing a sense of hope and passion to U.S. politics that Canadians can only dream of.

Granted, aside from wealth inequality, Canadians don’t have the same problems Americans have, but that is no reason not to be passionate about the policies you care about and the future of your country.

Canadians saw that passion once, in another proud socialist. Four years before Americans were feeling the Bern, the late Jack Layton of the NDP was giving us the Orange Crush. Layton’s New Democrats gave the Liberal Party their greatest defeat in Canadian history. He did it by galvanizing the population by campaigning on the left.

If you want votes, you need to get people talking. No one did it better than Layton who took the NDP from virtual obscurity to official opposition. If he were still alive today, there is no doubt in my mind the NDP would be miles ahead of the pack.

Alas, we can only dream. Those days seem dead and gone. What we are left with is lesser men fighting it out over lesser policy and they wonder why only 60% of the country votes. I’m still going to vote, but it looks like it won’t be for any of these Prince Valiums.

I’ll be waiting for the Canadian Bernie Sanders to finally whisk me off my feet. They’ll be passionate about wealth inequality, the environment, health care and aboriginal rights. They’ll speak out about bogus trade deals, and shameful foreign policy. Lastly, they’ll be able to communicate their message so well that the corporate media will have no choice but to listen and talk about them. I’m looking at you Elizabeth.

Panelists David DesBaillets and Stacy Drake discuss the 2015 Canadian Federal Election, nightlife gun violence in Toronto like the shooting at the afterparty for Drake’s OVO Fest and a rundown of stories since our last podcast in the Old News segment. Plus the Community Calendar.

In other words: we’re actors in food systems. Our decisions carry vast implications—the ethics of the brand we support, say, or the type of living beings we decide to ingest.

Yet now that elections are looming, it’s worth considering the literal sense of the phrase.

George Washington, after all, is forever associated with cherries: a symbol of humility and aversion to lies. François Mitterand had a not-so-secret addiction to caviar—anathema, said some, to his socialist past. Bill Clinton, of course, was the Prez of BBQ and fried chicken, indulging in the richest of Southern foods, it would seem, whenever opportunity arose. And we all know Obama’s love of quality burgers—especially In-n-Out Burger—frequent stops for him and his entourage that in some ways helped launch his social media persona.

If food is the way to the political heart, what do the eating habits of our Prime Minister candidates reveal?

Spoiler alert: a mostly opaque snapshot of dullness, disjointedness, and general disingenuity.* (*though if the candidates return my dinner party invitation, more may soon be revealed).

Where to begin?

Justin Trudeau

Consider our dear Papineau homeboy Justin Trudeau. Though the Liberal leader has revealed little of his culinary personality, he gains hipster points for slagging off Schwartz and holding his latest presser in a retro Québécois diner (the latest foodie cult object, if you didn’t know). Sadly, however, Mr. Trudeau’s hipster swag is severely undermined by the generic grilled salmon meal he cooked as part of the Win a Date with Justin Trudeau contest, promoted by such gems as the snapshot below:

Popular opinion, however, is firmly in Mr. Trudeau’s favour when it comes to the culinary. An Abacus poll ranked him Canadian’s top choice “to have over for dinner with your family (43%),” as well as to “cook the best meal (41%)”. (Incidentally, he also outranks cat-loving Harper in the animal category, voted “most trusted to look after your pet (40%)”).

Stephen Harper

What of Mr. Harper, our teetotalling incumbent, who once famously said, “I don’t drink, except when I do.” What be the gastronomical keys to his heart?

We’ve boiled long weeks of exhaustive research on this question down to a simple answer: they’re dictated by his PR team each day.

Mr. Harper’s ubiquity in culturally-capitalistic food photos is matched only by his ability to appear lifeless when caught by the lens. Harper’s habit of seeming photogenically disengaged is so widely known that regular citizens have dedicated blogs to the phenomenon.

Keenly aware of his poor “normalcy” index, Mr. Harper’s PR team recently crafted a Twitter campaign dubbed #dayinthelife. Yet besides beefing up his already prolific set of cat photos, the campaign’s thick veneer only served to reinforce his lack of humanity further.

The PM eats some unspecified breakfast which is dominated by Stanley the cat. Near noon, the PM’s “working lunch” is mentioned, though glossed over using lingo from generic dietary trends du jour; the suggestion is that it’s something similar to broccoli and fish (how perfectly healthy).

Yet there is one thing thing of substance we do know about the PM’s eating patterns. It’s a big one, as antithetical to his stony public image as the perpetual selfies with kittens. Journalists and aides both corroborate that hot sauce is Mr. Harper’s serious vice. He is said to regularly request the spiciest version of any available food, to add jalapenos to his mother’s lasagna and possess a voluminous collection of deathly-hot sauces in his own kitchen.

Thomas Mulcair

If Harper is intent on ingesting all manner of PR-friendly goods (while secretly mainlining hot sauce late at night with Stanley), Thomas Mulcair is just as intent on abstaining altogether.

So-called “angry Tom” has been trying (to mixed reviews) to turn his frown upside down. Yet he remains mad as hell at his food.

All of it.

There is simply no evidence Mr. Mulcair eats. Or that he has ever eaten. Surely not on camera. Even the Maclean’s portrait of the candidate, perhaps the most intimate yet, offers only one fleeting reference to consumption. Mulcair downs some quick hot chocolate (no food)—only after a grizzly daylong trek through the snow.

Even food-themed photo ops suggest Mulcair’s disdain for ingestion.

Consider Obama, Trudeau or Layton. Each one can be seen wolfing down diner fare at their rural campaign stops. Though Mr. Mulcair uses similar resto backdrops, he hasn’t been seen so much as sipping a cup of joe.

Yet no one can accuse the industrious NDP head of slacking off in the kitchen. Even when he slaves away at the pizza oven, as at the Brampton pizzeria where he announced tax cuts to small businesses, Mr. Mulcair didn’t indulge in a single bite from his labours.

Then there’s those pre-Orange Wave photo ops alongside the eponymous Mr. Layton. Just take a look below. Genuine though his smile may be, Mr. Mulcair conspicuously refuses to share in the pleasure of the bite; meanwhile Mr. Layton is in obvious joy with the food in his hands.

The sum of our findings… if they’re findings at all?

At best they’re useless – and at worst they are grim. For either these candidates are ashamed of their true passions (a bad sign), or their eating habits are impossibly dull and unconscious (even worse).

Elizabeth May

Perhaps there’s one candidate who proves the exception to this culinary rule. In the fiery vegetarianism espoused by Elizabeth May we see her natural fit with party ideals, not to mention the genuine, seemingly enjoyable relationship to food.

She’s known to haunt several Ottawa restos, is loved by the waitstaff, speaks passionately about seafood in her home province of Nova Scotia (though it’s unclear if she ‘cheats’ on the veggie diet), discusses openly her recipes and food thoughts with journalists, and even shows off her unvarnished love for the kitchen on this cooking show.

Let’s be clear: this is far from an endorsement of May (or her diet). Though I can’t help be moved by a politician that actually eats, actually experiences food, rather than posing with it: after all, that’s what humans tend to do.

On Wednesday, as most Canadian politicos were either basking in the afterglow of the Orange Wave which swept Alberta or nursing their hangovers, the House of Commons passed Bill C-51, the Harper Government’s so-called anti-terror legislation. This wasn’t a surprise by a longshot, but it is, nonetheless extremely unfortunate.

All the major parties voted as the said they would. The Conservatives voted for it, the NDP and Greens against, and the Liberals, living up to half of their promise to help make it law and then change it if they come to power, voted yea.

Much has been said about how this Bill is fundamentally flawed and over-reaching. Many pundits, including myself, have raised concerns that C-51’s definition of terrorism was left vague so the bill could be used as a weapon against the government’s political opponents such as environmentalists, First Nations, BDS supporters and others.

One thing that really hasn’t been talked about, though, is that even if C-51 was on-target and not a typical Harper Omnibus distraction, there still wouldn’t be need for it at all.

A Tale of Two Tragedies

I will never forget the Dawson shooting. My old CEGEP turned into a crime scene. Anastasia DeSouza was gunned down, an innocent, random victim of one man’s violent delusion. Her murderer, Kimveer Gill, killed himself after being shot in the arm by police, though this is one of those rare times when I think deadly force by police would have been justified.

At the end of the day, two people were dead, one an innocent victim, one very much the exact opposite. Several people were injured and survivors were left traumatized.

It was a terrible tragedy. In the aftermath people were calling for tighter firearms regulations and improved services for people suffering from mental illness. No one, though, was screaming terrorism, because it wasn’t. It was the act of one man.

What happened last October in Ottawa was also a tragedy. Corporal Nathan Frank Cirillo died senselessly, the victim of one man’s delusion. His killer, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, was justifiably killed by Parliament Hill Sergeant at Arms Kevin Vickers.

At the end of the day, two people were dead, one innocent, one guilty. Others were injured and survivors were traumatized. I don’t laugh at Prime Minister Harper hiding in a broom closet (though I do question the RCMP’s exit strategy for a head of state), he’s human and was a victim of this event, too.

Despite its similarities to the Dawson shooting and other horrific attacks carried out by troubled lone gunmen, the reaction to the Parliament Hill shooting was different. It was instantly labelled as a terrorist attack.

A few thousand people, or even just a few people, killed by a coordinated assault planned by a group is a terrorist attack. It doesn’t justify something like the Patriot Act, in my opinion, but at least the shoe fits. A lone gunman going on a spree is a spree killing, even if the spree is cut short after one or a few victims.

While Zehaf-Bibeau may have had thoughts of jihad in his head and chose targets based on his take on world politics, he was still just a disturbed man acting without outside coordination. Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was as much a member of ISIS as Kimveer Gill was the Angel of Death he claimed to be on a website.

Political Reasons Only

Justin Trudeau was interviewed on Vice News a few weeks ago. Shane Smith asked him about his party’s confusing position on C-51. Trudeau said that despite C-51’s faults, “there are a number of things in that legislation that increase security for Canadians, that do make us safer at a time when people are worried about terrorism.”

I’d honestly like to know what those things are. How does anything in a bill, inspired by an event that is not terrorism, but the act of a disturbed individual, protect Canadians against the bogeyman of terrorism?

It can’t, but that’s not the point. The point, at least for Trudeau, is “at a time when people are worried about terrorism.”

It’s politics, pure and simple. Polls, albeit sketchy polls, showed support for the bill at the time. He went for it. So did the Bloc Quebecois. When C-51 came up for a vote, though, the Bloc voted against it. I guess they saw that the bill was now opposed by many. If there ever was a time for the Liberals to flip-flop and not suffer for it, it was Wednesday.

There are so many ways Trudeau could have sold a reversal on this that even the cleverest Dipper wouldn’t be able to use it to hurt his party. While I’m not a Liberal supporter by any stretch of the imagination, I would have welcomed it. The more voices against this bill, the better. I even wrote to Marc Garneau, my current MP, asking him to convince his boss to change his tune.

Colossal Miscalculation

Being the anti-Harper candidate doesn’t just mean looking younger and fresher and having somewhat more progressive social policies. It means opposing crap bills with no purpose like C-51.

Instead, Trudeau stuck to his badly aimed guns. The opposition to this monstrosity of a piece of legislation now clearly belongs to Tom Mulcair. The NDP leader is a moderate centrist at best, but, thanks to a little bit of rain on his hair and some serious Liberal bungling, he has the chance to come across as a street fighter, standing on a soapbox railing against oppression and invoking the War Measures Act and Duplessis’ Padlock Laws. He’s Angry Tom who’s angry for a very good reason.

Justin Trudeau voting for C-51

C-51 may have cost Justin Trudeau any chance he had in the upcoming election. That is, if people remember a few months from now that he sided with Harper on a bill which has no purpose but potentially horrible repercussions. If they do, he can forget about the left. As for the right, why would they vote for Harper Light when the real deal is also on the ballot?

This colossal miscalculation on the part of the Liberals doesn’t necessarily mean a new era, though. Stephen Harper is still one of the craftiest politicians out there. Even if the anti-Harper vote crystallizes into a shade of orange, some of what once was red may turn blue and join their right-wing brethren to fight the feared wave.

The real trick is convincing all, or most, Canadians, whether they lean right, left, stay in the centre or don’t really care about politics at all, that taking away our basic rights to express ourselves for manufactured purposes is just plain wrong.

In the wake of the most devastating war that mankind had known at that point in time, tens of thousands of battered and torn, brave Canadian soldiers sent to the frontlines of a mortal duel between imperial powers, returned home. With them came hundreds of thousands of toiled and impoverished Europeans of all walks of life in search of a better life, of a brighter tomorrow.

Unfortunately, all they found was a gilded cage. The country in which they had invested so many hopes was the private domain of a handful of business moguls who had founded their empires in inequality, on the backs of the men and women who had sacrificed their livelihoods and well-being for the “greater good.”

The Winnipeg strike of 1919 was couched in this misery and inequality, it appeared as a roar, a revolt of the “have-nots” against those that possessed everything. The series of strikes that occurred in Winnipeg during the year of 1919 would create ripples that would reach far beyond the boundaries of Manitoba, it would create a movement.

The “Bolsheviks”, the striking workers as they were labeled, would continue to organize with the objective of not merely forging better working conditions in the their immediate environment, but of profoundly transforming Canadian society. As Podemos was born out of Peurta Del Sol and other indignant square occupations, that swept Spain in 2011, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation –the CCF, the forerunner of the NDP– was born out of the Winnipeg strike of 1919. Its first leader J.S. Woodsworth was a strike leader and was arrested by the authorities for his “subversive activities” during the strike, for Tommy Douglas it was his political awakening.

Form that starting point, the CCF would become a leading political formation. It would unite the various left wing Canadian fractions which existed at the time and create bridges between the farmer and labour movements. In 1944, as World War II, yet another war which had torn and ripped apart the world, was drawing to an end, Tommy Douglas would lead the CCF to its first electoral victory in Saskatchewan.

Tommy Douglas at a rally in Hamilton, 1968 (image: Canadian Press)

In the witch hunt epoch of Mccarthyism, the establishment of an overtly socialist government in the heart of North America was welcome by few. Criticism came from the right, but also came from the left. On the left, the expediency of the CCF’s reforms weren’t swift enough. On the right (yes that includes the Liberals) CCFers were either utopists or Stalinists.

But the CCF government stood their ground, and offered Canada its first Bill of Rights, a forerunner to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that would be implemented by the Trudeau administration in 1982. But most importantly, Tommy Douglas’s CCF administration would bring to life a universal public health-care system for all residents of Saskatchewan.

The opposition against medicare was ferocious, negative campaigns sought to turn public opinion against the project, doctors went on strike bringing medical services to an almost complete halt; the CCF stood strong. Now both are recognized essential quilts of the tissue of Canadian identity.

After his tenure in Regina, Tommy Douglas would go on to become the first leader of the newly anointed New Democratic Party of Canada. During one of the darkest times in Canadian history, when Pierre Elliot Trudeau decreed martial law in Quebec, only one voice stood in opposition to the draconian measure. It was that of Tommy Douglas and his NDP caucus.

Svend Robinson and police (image gayvancouver.net)

The story of the CCF and of the NDP is the story of a movement that was born out of misery, poverty and struggle, out of blood, sweat and tears. It’s the story of Svend Robinson and his fight for LGBT and Trans-rights amidst massive discrimination and harassment. It’s the story of Libby Davis and her fight to uphold the rights of sex workers and of safe injection sites, of compassion instead of punishment for drug dependents. Its the story of Elijah Harper and Frank Calder and their fight to uphold aboriginal rights in Canada. It’s the story of a “little” party that managed with 19, with 33, with 103 seats in government or not, in power or without it, to profoundly transform Canadian society for the better to forge Canadian institutions that reflect the goodness in our hearts.

I had promised myself never to write a post about the NDP, promise broken! Because I’m too closely involved in it, my post couldn’t be impartial. But given the desperate times we are living in, the recurrent lack of hope, the mainstream media’s constant spin which reinforces right-wing rhetoric, the straitjacket of neo-liberal propaganda: job-creators, investment, economic growth, free-trade, the poverty of the debate about fossil fuel development, the self-defeatism of some sections of the left endorsing the non-choice of strategic voting, the discourse of sacrificing the awesome possibility of Canada’s first viable left-wing government on the altar of an “Anything but Harper” Campaign, I couldn’t help myself!

Canada needs the spirit of 1919 more than ever! Its never been the NDP’s thing to listen to polls, so forget the polls! To strive for power for the sake of power, let’s leave that to those that are so poor only opportunism guides them!

We must redouble of courage and audacity in this coming year, not merely win an election but create the space to transform Canadian society. That can only be done in synchrony with social movements throughout the country. We mustn’t merely offer an alternative, we must break the framework that sustains Liberal-Conservative hegemony and unmask the voidness of neoliberal agendas and their buzzwords.

Within the NDP we can’t forget the importance of the anti-austerity movements that are organizing against the neoliberal agenda, but anti-austerity movements also mustn’t forget that the best vehicle to stop austerity is having a government that puts people before profit.

Push, shove and struggle, create the space within Canadian civil society for an anti-austerity agenda, we are in dire need of it! As Franklin Delano Roosevelt said to union leaders in 1933 “make me do it!”

LIbby Davies writing on a wall in support of sex workers (image: libbydavies.ca)

Thomas Mulcair recently said that what struck him the most during his travels from coast to coast to coast was the “goodness” that reigns in the hearts of everyday Canadians and how unfortunately it isn’t reflected in our government. I couldn’t agree more! We must put that goodness, the goodness, solidarity and compassion which found its most beautiful expression this year in the community of Cold Lake Alberta forefront and center, at the heart of all our struggles.

At the height of the French Revolution, with reactionary forces at the gates of Paris preparing their final assault against the revolutionary epicenter of Europe, in dire times where the novice republic and all its accomplishments were on a thin razor edge, threatened with possibility of being just another ephemere footnote of history, Danton stood on a pupitre and spoke these words as far as his breath could carry: “We need audacity, yet more audacity, always audacity!”

A luta continua!

PS: This post is dedicated to Libby Davis who has been and always will be an eternal source of inspiration for me.

* Featured image of Thomas Muclair at the Corona Theatre in Montreal, 2011, by Chris Zacchia

* Full disclosure: Niall is both a card-carrying NDP member and works for an MP. As such, he has avoided writing about the party, until he just couldn’t resist.

To quote Katie Nelson, “When Global uses ‘unreal’ as an adjective you know it’s worth watching!” Yes, the scene in the Canadian Parliament a few days ago can only be described as unreal or rather surreal.

Thomas Mulcair, the leader of the Official Opposition, New Democratic Party (NDP), was trying to get some specifics out of the government about Canadian deployment in Iraq. Instead of responding to Mulcair’s very clear question, Conservative MP Paul Calandra, the Prime Minister’s Parliamentary Secretary, brought up some statement an NDP staffer had made earlier about Israel.

Mulcair’s initial response, before calling on the speaker to intervene after a second non-answer from the Harper government, was priceless. Watch it for yourself:

While I’ve heard Muclair use sarcasm effectively before, this response impressed me for another reason: he didn’t take the bait.

That wasn’t the case a few months ago. Following a struggle with the NDP base over his initial statements on the assault on Gaza that saw office occupations, and culminated with a sort of mea culpa op-ed in the Toronto Star, a lone MP, Sana Hassainia, quit the party and blamed it on Mulcair’s recent support of Israel.

Instead of a simple statement acknowledging Hassainia’s resignation, Mulcair echoed some of the statements the NDP faithful had been criticizing him for, breaking the party peace he had just regained. He took the bait.

It’s not hard to imagine someone in the Harper war room taking note of that and concluding that if a random MP could get a rise out of the leader by bringing up Israel, they could surely do the same. It’s also not hard to imagine a memo going out saying something like: “If you don’t want to answer a question from Mulcair, bring up Israel, it’s a sore spot!”

If that was their plan, it failed spectacularly this week. It did not result in any NDP in-fighting, but Calandra has become the poster boy for CPC caginess when it comes to serious issues to the point that mainstream media called it unreal. I, for one, really would like to hear an actual answer to that question.

Mulcair learned his lesson. But that’s not the only reason he’s impressed me as of late.

A few weeks ago, after the conservatives refused yet another request for an inquiry into missing and murdered native women, Mulcair promised one within the first hundred days should he be elected Prime Minister. The NDP followed up by forcing a debate in parliament on the issue. Have a look at that, too:

To be fair, Trudeau also wants an inquiry. Honestly, anyone not wanting an inquiry into this is confounding. Trudeau is not prioritizing it, though. The NDP has the lead on this one.

Meanwhile the only thing I see in the news about Trudeau is that he kissed the bride at a wedding, that both of his parents got laid a lot, and that he has a problem with Ezra Levant and Sun News. I honestly don’t think he actually has a problem with them: hate from Sun brings votes on the left.

Sun, along with the rest of mainstream media, is fully on board the Trudeau versus Harper bandwagon, even though very little separates the two candidates policy-wise. Until recently, I didn’t really care, because Mulcair’s NDP wasn’t offering much of an alternative.

Now, that has changed. Now, the NDP is offering a solid alternative to the Harper approach on some issues. I’d love to see Mulcair reverse his position on Energy East, come out strongly for weed legalization, and against Harper’s re-criminalization of sex work, but I accept that he needs to start somewhere and this is a good start.

Many in the mainstream media say that Mulcair is a star in the House of Commons, but loses the soundbite war to Trudeau. Maybe, just maybe, that’s because in parliament, the NDP is given the respect and place in the discourse that should be accorded to the Official Opposition, whereas the media has already bought the Liberals vs. Conservatives angle as they have for years.

I could have been making observations like this months ago, but didn’t really see the point. Now I do.

If Mulcair and the NDP stay on this course and keep fighting the good fights, they will be giving people like me something truly different to vote for.